Well, there was that thing in the Balkans……

 

78 years of peace? You are SADLY misinformed:

And seriously you would spend American blood to keep ‘the travel industry’ in Europe from being ‘bad’? You’d actually sacrifice 18 year old American kids - no doubt someone else’s 18 year old kids - so you can fly a widebody to Prague? So you have any idea how pathetic that sounds?

 

I'm saying your laissez-faire attitude will only be destabilizing for the entire world and cost more lives in the long run. Including American lives.
There are a lot of steps before direct US involvement. Sanctions. A well funded and armed insurgency. Putin may have bitten off more than he can chew and might strike directly at NATO. You think we should stay home then, too?


You apparently are very self-interested, so why not appeal to your direct self-interest?

 

Indeed. On a related note, I straight up stole this from twitter:

“It’s October 1962. We tell USSR we won’t tolerate nukes in Cuba. Russia points to our missiles in Turkey, says Cuba is an independent country that can make its own security choices. We tell them it’s not going to happen, period. They persist, we attack Cuba. Who started the war?“

IMHO, The US insane expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia precipitated this humanitarian crisis. Luminaries like H Kissinger have been sounding the alarms about this since at least 2014.

 

Probably a distinction without a difference.

Every type of polity and government in history has an outward form for public consumption/support that is in reality controlled by an elite class.

Some work better for the common man than others, but usually more by accident than design. A bug, not a feature.

 

It's mind blowing to see Americans pointing to a defensive alliance as the root cause of an invasion.

 

I would have done the same google/wiki copy paste, but kept it to the Balkans since it’s probably the most “well known” amongst people that have paid even a little bit of attention. Followed by Chechnya, 1 AND 2.

I believe the knowledge gained there (Chechnya) and the books written surpasses what the Rhodesians/Sealous learned/wrote about in regards to anti-gorilla/COIN strategy and tactics, and that’s saying something.

Granted, bush war vs. urban conflict, but still.

 

NATO was explicitly formed as a defensive alliance to deter and repel a foreign military alliance that disappeared in 1991. A recent president rightly scoffed at the current Russia as nothing more than a gas station.

This is not the Sudetenland, Putin is not Hitler, Biden is not Chamberlain.

Most of the NATO members have ZERO interest in this fight. Germany, especially. They want it to end, quickly, without triggering massive energy cost spikes, a global recession, or a massive refugee problem.

There is no way a military confrontation with any nuclear armed power ends in anything but a draw, after heavy loss of life. NATO is not the solution to this mess.

 

You mind telling Putin that? He seems hellbent on putting the band back together.

 

. You may believe that, but that doesn’t make it so. Europe got along without us before 1917. I’m sure they would get along without us now. Might it be necessary to WEAN them from dependency? Maybe. But a number of different administrations - both Democrat and Republican - have tried to do that with little success.

This is scarcely a new problem:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...mselves-64648/

but our “allies” have been pretty intransigent about it.


https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/75484

https://www.bundestag.de/resource/bl...eport-data.pdf

Maybe it’s time to go cold turkey and let the Europeans handle their own affairs.

I see no reason for US involvement AT ALL. It isn’t a US problem,


Which the Europeans are entirely capable of doing. Of course they are going to have to buy their oil and natural gas from someone OTHER than the Russians then, which if they’d been doing to begin with the Russians wouldn’t have had the revenue to mount this invasion with.

. That doesn’t make sense. You think after he bites off more than he can chew he would THEN take on NATO?

. At this point, yes. The EU has a total GDP of 17.1 Trillion dollars. Russia has a GDP of 1.4 Trillion dollars. They can fund their own defense.

I did my tour in the military. In fact, during that time I did tours in both Germany and Spain in support of NATO. How many have you done?

My self-interest at this time is keeping my kids from getting killed or even being taxed to support nations that won’t defend themselves.